With Best Intentions
by raeubertochter
Summary: Trying to combine your professional- and your family-life is never easy. In certain lines of work it is much harder than in others, though. Still, Sakura and Kakashi try their best to make it work.
1. Partners in Crime

_Dear Readers!_  
><em>Before this story begins I'd like to say a few words. <em>  
><em>I never thought I'd ever (ever) write a next-generation-fic, but now I do. The idea for this came from another story I wrote a while back (Choice), which can be read as a prequel to what happens here and now. (But you don't have to read it, if you don't want to.)<em>

_I'd also like to warn you. This won't be happy, fluffy family-life. (If you read Choice, you might have guessed.) _

_If you are looking for a story about Kakashi and Sakura being perfect parents, you're probably in the wrong place here._

_But if you are looking for the two of them trying hard to be the best parents they can be – I dearly hope that you will enjoy this fic. _

_~ Nero._

* * *

><p><strong>Partners in Crime<strong>

The Academy's hallway is long and windy, as if it had been specially designed to make escape for students impossible. It twists and bends and behind each corner there might be a teacher waiting, an evil grin on his face, and his hands ready to grab you by your collar and drag you back to the class you are supposed to be in.

Sneaking out of class, Hane Hatake has decided for herself, she learns way more than staying in class.

For example: There is an air shaft next to the boy's bathroom, and if you are very small (and Hane is very small), you can easily use it to sneak past the staffroom and avoid the wide windows that would expose you to the class currently at work on the Academy's training ground.

It's a bit of a maze up here though, and after three or four junctions Hane feels lost. For a second she is scared – what if she will never find her way out of here ever again? She'd dehydrate and starve and die, and no one would find her until the smell of rotting flesh would seep into the class-rooms. She imagines how they'll have to send one of her father's smaller dogs into the air shaft and the shock on her parents' faces when it is her, little Hane, who'll be dragged out of here.

And then the solution to the problem hits her. Of course – if the ninken can use their noses to find her in this maze, she should be able to use her own nose to find her way outside.

Fifteen minutes later, she pushes back a metal grit and breaths in the open summer-air. The metal grit falls down to the ground with a loud "clonk" and Hane freezes. Someone must have heard it, she thinks and crawls backwards until she thinks she must be concealed in shadows.

She waits, ears and nose on alert, but no one comes to see what that noise was, so eventually she climbs out of the air shaft and down the Academy wall. She wonders if she should replace the grit and decides that yes – it would be way more professional, if she didn't leave any traces. But the metal is quite heavy, and after a few (painfully) unsuccessful attempts of walking up the wall with it in her hands she gives up. (She usually is very good at walking up walls, but carrying something like this is a completely different matter!)

"Do you need help with that?"

Hane spins around. They _did _hear the noise, she thinks, but they were clever enough not to let her notice them.

She cannot see anyone. However, she soon sees something. One thin and dark tentacle slithers in her direction, wraps its end around the metal grid and easily lifts it up and pushes it back in its place.

Hane grins, but her grin quickly drops (just like the rest of her body), as the shadowy tentacle suddenly twists around her ankle, and in one swift movement pulls her away from the Academy's building.

Dangling by her feet, Hane looks down at Shikamaru, who's lying in the grass, half closed eyes squinting up at his catch and an amused smile playing around his lips.

"Shouldn't you be in class?", he asks.

"It's boring", Hane replies dryly.

"I'm sure it is. But you might learn something useful."

"We never learn anything useful in kunoichi-classes", she pouts, then wiggles a little. She can feel the blood pulsing in her head.

Shikamaru doesn't seem to notice. He considers her words carefully, then lets her down to the ground.

Hane understands his invitation.

"What are you doing here, Shikamaru-sensei?", she asks, while she lies down, mimicking his posture.

"Training with Nozomi", he tells her.

This confuses Hane.

Nozomi is Hane's best friend but – unlike Hane – doesn't skip kunoichi-classes. She thinks about it for a little while, but still can't make any sense of it. So eventually she says:

"But Nozomi is still in school."

Shikamaru turns his head.

"I know", he says with a sly grin "but Tsunade-sama doesn't."

Now that Hane understands her eyes widen.

"You're skipping classes, too?", she asks, amazed by the possibility that an adult would do so.

"In a way", Shikamaru yawns.

"But", he adds, "we _are_going to train later. Wanna join us?"

This isn't a question he has to ask. Both of them know.

Hane beams as she nods eagerly.

By now she could easily take it for granted that she is allowed to part-take in Nozomi's training with Shikamaru. Yet she'd never ask, but always waits for one of those two to invite her. Luckily they usually do.

Training with Shikamaru is very different from the training they get in the Academy, or even from training with her father. Hane likes Shikamaru's kind of training, even though Nozomi tells her that he is just too lazy to do anything else with them.

Half of the time he simply presents them with problems, as they might occur on a real mission, and lets the girls solve them in theory.

Today it is different, though. Maybe Nozomi nagged him enough for them to get some "real" training, or maybe Shikamaru thought it time for the girls to get some action. Either way, today – when Nozomi has finished her kunoichi-class – he leads the way down to the training ground.

Hours later Hane makes her way home. She's covered in mud and her clothes are partly torn, and in her left hand she clutches one of her front teeth (it had been loose for some days, but she hadn't expected it to fall out so soon). She feels like she just lived through a war. Which she did, in a way.

Their training's objective had been to steal an egg (an actual egg) from Shikamaru (which they managed) and then bring it home (that is, to their corner of the training-ground) without allowing it to get damaged on the way (which they didn't manage – it was then that they learned that the egg was not only real, but also raw). But, Shikamaru told them, they were on a good way, so it wasn't all bad).

Hane can smell the bad news before she's entered her parent's house. The perfume of her kunoichi instructor, Suzume-sensei, lingers on the door-step.

She braces herself, stands on her tiptoes to reach the door-handle, and carefully steps inside.

She peals off her dirt-clot sandals and listens.

"If your daughter's attitude doesn't change any time soon, I assure you, this will have consequences", Suzume says.

Hane waits for her mother to answer, but instead hears a chair being pushed back, and shortly after that Hane's mother appears in the hallway. She looks down at her daughter with lips as thin as a line and eyes like poison.

For a second Hane's blood freezes. Then she understands that her mother' anger isn't directed at her.

"Upstairs", she whispers, "get yourself cleaned up, and then go to your room."

Hane nods. She wonders if this is her punishment, but suspects that it isn't, as her mother raises her index-finger to her lips, motioning Hane to be very quiet.

Hane sits in her room and waits. She stares at the alarm clock on her desk.

Seventeen minutes and thirty-nine seconds later her mother knocks at her door (she always does), but doesn't wait for her daughter's answer (she never does).

"This", she says, resting her hands on her hips "was the last time I made up excuses for you skipping school."

"Yes, mum", Hane mumbles. It's the fourth _last time_and by now Hane doesn't feel very threatened any more. Of course she would never tell her mother.

"It was just kunoichi-class", she tries to explain herself – because she knows that her mother shares her dislike of this particular class.

"It's always _just kunoichi-class_", her mother retorts.

"I know it's boring, but you might need to pose as some boring civilian woman on a mission one day, and what will you do then?"

Hane thinks about this for a moment. She has heard the argument before, from both her parents as well as her teachers.

"I'll simply refuse the mission", she then says. It's obvious really.

Her mother's right eye twitches a little.

"That's not how it works", she tells Hane, her voice accelerating in volume.

"You don't get to refuse a mission."

"And how would you know?", Hane shouts back.

"You don't go on missions. You work at the hospital!"

With a loud crash, her mothers fist slams into Hane's bedroom wall. It leaves a small dent, and some plaster crumbles down to the ground and into the fur of Mister Beagle. (A plush-dog. Hane would love to have a real one, but her father tells her that she's still to young for that.)

"That's it", Hane's mother says. She's no longer shouting. Her voice is very quiet and very sharp. Like cutting-wire.

"You're grounded", she says.

"And don't even think about climbing out the window", she then adds, while her fingers run through a number of seals.

Hane blinks. She has no idea what she did to make her mother this angry, but she suddenly feels sure that the fourth last time really was the last.

* * *

><p><em>So much for the first chapter.<br>Please tell me what you think. (Even, or especially, if you disagree with anything I wrote!)_

_And, to avoid any confusion. The name I chose for Kurenai's daughter is the same one I gave her in Aftermath. However, those two fics are in no way connected (other than being written by the same author and for the same fandom) - I'm simply very lazy when it comes to making up names_ _for fandom OCs._


	2. Great Expectations

**Great Expectations**

Some weeks pass, and Hane does her very best not to irritate her mother again, which isn't easy because lately her mother gets irritated much quicker than usual. (And she's not that hard to provoke to begin with.)

Hane sits at the kitchen-table and watches her placing some take-away food in the microwave. This is the only thing she ever does in the kitchen.

There's something Hane wants to ask, but she's afraid that she might not like the answer she'll get. She closes her eyes and tries to pluck up the courage to speak.

"Mum", she eventually says and then waits, to make sure that she has got her mother's full attention.

"Do you think dad will let me take the final exam this year?"

She holds her breath and waits, but her mother doesn't say anything for a very long time. She just stares at the two pairs of chopsticks in her hand.

"I'm not sure", she finally brings out. She walks around the table and wraps her arms around Hane from behind (which is odd, Hane thinks, because her mother rarely hugs her without a reason).

"I don't know if he...", Hane can feel her mother's lips against the back of her head, and her breath in her hair, and for a second she is scared (though she does not know of what), but then her mother squeezes her and tells her they'd just have to ask him, once he's back.

"He's been away long, hasn't he?", Hane says as her mother returns to preparing dinner (that is, placing the warmed up take-away on two plates).

"It must be a very troublesome mission he's on", Hane concludes. She watches her mother's back, watches her shoulders move.

Hane wonder's how it can take so long to fill two plates.

When her mother finally turns to sit down she smiles, although it is a different smile than her usual one.

"You", she tells Hane "spend too much time with Shikamaru-sensei."

Hane tries to ignore her mother's remark, but she can feel her ears grow hot and for once is very grateful for the colour of her hair, which makes the pink glow almost invisible.

"He'll be back next week, though", she says instead and with a full mouth.

Her mother says nothing. She picks around on her plate like one isn't supposed to do.

"Why?", she eventually asks.

Hane cannot believe that her mother forgot.

"It's my birthday next week", she explains.

"Dad promised he'd be home for my birthday"

There's this weird smile on Hane's mother's face again as she puts her chopsticks aside.

"Hane-chan", she says very slowly.

"You mustn't be angry with your father, when – if he won't manage to be there next week. Promise me?"

Hane doesn't understand why her mother would say something like that. She knows her father, and she knows that he'd never (never!) break a promise he made to her. So, Hane just shrugs.

"But he will be there", she tells her mother. Because she knows that he will, and if her mother doesn't understand this she's really not as clever as everyone seems to think she is.

* * *

><p>It is a Saturday when Hane has her birthday – which is very exciting. She can't remember if she has ever had her birthday on a Saturday before. Her mother took the day off, too, and after breakfast they spent some time playing together before they set up the coffee-table.<p>

Hane's father hasn't come home yet. But he will, Hane is sure of that. She lays the table for four. Herself, her mother, her father and her grandmother, who regrettably had to get invited as well.

At three o'clock aunt Ino drops by. She brings a small package with a lavender-coloured ribbon, which remains closed because Hane won't unpack any presents until her father has come home. She also brings flowers for Hane's mother (she knows that Hane doesn't care about flowers very much), and then the two grown ups vanish in the kitchen where they talk quietly.

Hane doesn't mind (though she insists that they put up a fifth plate). She climbs into the cherry-tree that grows in their front-yard and from up there watches and waits for her father to come home. But he doesn't come and when Hane's grandmother has arrived they all have to sit down at the kitchen-table and Ino and Hane's mother praise the cake that her grandmother brought (with seven little candles of the same colour as Hane's and her mother's hair), while Hane stares solemnly at the door.

"Well then, shall we light the candles?", her grandmother says and lightly pinches Hane's shoulder.

Hane shakes her head. She crosses her arms very tightly and bites her lip. There's no way she's going to cry here and now.

"Not until dad is home", she says. She ignores the looks that the grown-ups exchange. It's obvious that _they_don't believe her father will come home today. But Hane knows better.

Her grandmother doesn't seem to care though (she never does) and reaches to light the candles anyway. Before either her mother or Ino can stop her, Hane is up on the table and snatches the cake away from under her grandmother's lighter.

"I told you to wait!", she screams in a high-pitched voice that might even be able to break glass, and then tosses the cake in the general direction of her grandmother's head.

It misses and instead hits the floor, but Hane doesn't wait for her grandmother (who had covered her face with her hands) to realise this. She jumps off the table, ducks away under her mother's and Ino's hands and hurries upstairs.

There she stops, unsure what to do. She hesitantly slips into her parents bedroom and crawls into their bed, where she curls up under her father's blanket and buries her nose in his pillow, but it smells of nothing but laundry detergent. And then she starts to cry.

She doesn't hear her mother and grandmother scream at each other, downstairs, nor the front door banging as her grandmother leaves. She claws at her father's pillow, as if that might bring back some of his scent.

When she feels her mother's hands in her hair and on her back, Hane crawls deeper under her father's blanket, but this time mother's quicker and she soon pulls Hane out of there and onto her lap.

"He promised!", Hane sobs into her mother's dress.

"I know", she says. Her fingers push back some of Hane's hair, which has fallen in her face.

"Sometimes", she says. She doesn't sound as if she knows what to say next.

"Sometimes your father makes promises, even though he doesn't know if he can keep them."

"But that's bad", Hane replies. She finds it hard to believe that her father would do something like that.

"I'm sure really, really wants to be here", her mother assures her.

And finally Hane understands. Something must have happened. Something that keeps him away. She says so, but her mother doesn't answer.

"Tsunade-sama must send a search-party after him!", Hane tells her, because she knows that her mother and Tsunade-sama are very close.

Her mother gives Hane a half-smile.

"She already has, darling", she whispers. Her carefully composed expression melts away, and she too starts to cry.

Hane doesn't know what to do – she's never seen her mother cry before, not like this – and she's more than glad when Ino comes upstairs and asks if she should stay or leave and Hane quickly answers that yes, please, Ino has to stay.

So Ino stays and Ino prepares dinner and Ino scolds Hane's mother for not eating. (There's no need to scold Hane. Hane knows that she's very small – even for a six, seven-year-old – and if she doesn't eat she won't grow, and if she won't grow her mother will have no choice but to conduct medical experiments on her one day. So she forces herself to eat, even though she's not really hungry.)

After dinner Ino insists that they play some games and they play long into the evening – Hane cannot remember if she has ever stayed up this late – and eventually she falls asleep at the kitchen table.

* * *

><p><em>I must say, I find it incredibly hard to keep the balance between Hane's extreme naivety on one hand and her extraordinary cleverness on the other. Which is one reason why I wanted to write this story, but at the same time has me worried about her character's authenticity.<br>_


	3. A Real Shinobi

_First: A big thank you to everyone who took the time to review what happened so far! It really means a lot to me - especially with this little experiment.  
>It's so much fun, depicting the different canon-characters from Hane's point of view, but at the same time I'm constantly worried that I might get them wrong. Also, it's been some time since I've been seven, and I'm not interacting with seven-year old children too often either, so I'm still not too confident about Hane's authenticity.<br>Therefore, you're feedback - be it positive or negative - is more than appreciated!_

_Second: I wanted to say this before the last chapter, but forgot. This story was very much inspired by Astrid Lindgren's Ronja Rövardotter (Ronia the Robber's Daughter - who's also the sorce of my username here).  
>(It was also inspired by Desperate Housewives, but I'd rather not share this information.)<em>

_And third: A small warning. There will be some blood and some angst in this chapter. Hopefully nothing too gruesome. (I hope I didn't spoiler too much with this warning, but I thought I'd better let you know.)_

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><p><strong>A Real Shinobi<strong>

A week after her birthday Hane and Nozomi go picnicking in the woods just outside the village's wall. (They had to sneak past the guards to get here.)

They sit in a tree and carefully watch the road beneath them. This had been Nozomi's idea. _If_Hane's father was to come home, they'd be the first ones to see him.

Hane had shrugged and come along, because she didn't want to come up with an alternative. But she is scared that she'll be disappointed again and therefore forbids herself to hope.

She listens to Nozomi's stories about how it was when _her_ father didn't come home and wonders how she can know, when she wasn't even born back then. Then again, Nozomi _is_five years older than Hane, and therefore bound to know things Hane doesn't.

"Mum told me", Nozomi answers promptly.

"My parents never tell me about before I was born", Hane admits (otherwise she would have thought of this answer herself).

Nozomi thinks for a moment. There's a little crest between her eyebrows that is always there when she's trying to come up with an answer.

"Maybe their lives weren't that exciting", she suggests.

"I mean, they are both still alive."

"Hn", Hane makes and fixes her eyes on the road underneath them. She doesn't want to tell Nozomi that her mother doesn't seem to believe so any longer.

That night, Hane cannot sleep. She lies in her bed and stares out of the window. She wants to ask her mum if she can sleep in her bed, but when she stands in front of her parents' bedroom door she can hear her cry. Since Hane's birthday her mother cries a lot, and Hane can't stand it. Maybe, she thinks, this is because her mother isn't a real shinobi, but only a medic. (She knows that the Hokage is also a medic as well; but, to be honest, she cannot really imagine that Tsunade-sama really _is_the most powerful shinobi of the whole village.)

Hane pats downstairs and into the kitchen, where she glares at the fridge's handle, which is still out of reach. (She's seven now, and that's way past stepladder-age). And then she hears something else.

With one jump (maybe two) Hane is out of the kitchen and by the front door. She sniffs. She can smell all sorts of things, half of which she doesn't recognise. Most dominantly though, she smells blood and sweat and – somewhere underneath all this – her father's scent.

One second later, the door swings open.

Hane stands and stares as her father stumbles inside. The door falls shut behind him with a loud bang, and he leans against it, slides down to the ground (leaving a trail of blood and dirt on the wood) and remains there.

He's too busy catching his breath to notice Hane, who carefully nears him. She has seen her father wounded a number of times – in hospital – but she has never seen him like this – his clothes torn, his hair plastered to his head with a mixture of Hane-doesn't-even-want-to-know. Hane can feel the heat radiating from his body as she gets closer.

"Dad?", she pets his shoulder very carefully, yet her father winces at the touch. He turns his head, slowly, to look at her and Hane can see the attempt of a smile playing around his one visible eye. (He isn't wearing his forehead-protector, but his hair covers half of his face.)

"Hey", he breathes. He raises one hand to touch her cheek. This small gesture alone seems to cost him a tremendous amount of strength. He says something else, but the words get swallowed by his mask. The only things Hane can make out is "sorry" and "your mother".

And then it occurs to her, that she should go get her mother. Because she will be able to fix dad, because she can fix pretty much anything (or that's what Hane's father always told her). But Hane can't move. She just stares at her blood-covered father, whose hand – numb and heavy – now rests on her shoulder.

She cannot move. She cannot scream. She's not even sure if she is still here, or somewhere else, looking at herself looking at her father, who's dying – she knows, even though she knows that he cannot die, because he's her father and her father can't just die, and she knows she has to call her mother. A small, whimpering sound is all she gets when she tries, and her fathers hand is getting heavier on her shoulder, and Hane wishes she could just close her eyes and wake up, but she can't move and this isn't a dream and - -

Hane doesn't hear her mother coming downstairs, she doesn't hear her mother's first word when she sets eye on the scene down here ("Fuck!"). She only vaguely registers her mother yelling at her to step back.

But Hane still cannot move, though she lets out a startled squeak when her mother grabs her by her shoulders and pushes her away from her father.

Hane's mother doesn't seem shocked at all. She appears perfectly calm (calmer than Hane has ever seen her), as she kneels down next to Hane's father, her eyes and hands already scanning for each and every one of the injuries hidden underneath the layers of mud and dried blood.

"Sa-", her father begins to say, but his voice breaks half way. His eye drifts shut and his head lolls to the side, and Hane waits for her mother to cry.

She doesn't.

"Oh no, you don't", she says and doesn't sound like Hane's mother at all. Her hands flicker through a number of seals, too quick for Hane's eyes to follow – and then that thing on her forehead starts to glow, a deep, dark green and dark green lines grow from it like tendrils. They paint patterns on her mother's face, spread down her throat, over her chest (Hane can see their light through the nightdress's fabric), soon cover her arms and wrap themselves around Hane's fathers body, until both her parents are bathed in a deep, dark emerald glow.

The half strangled, agonized scream her father lets out runs down Hane's spine like ice-water, but she still cannot bring herself to close her eyes. She watches him squirm under her mother's jutsu, watches his fingers twitch and she sees her mother. Lips thin as a line, eyes narrowed, hair flying around her head.

After what feels like hours to Hane, it stops. The branches retreat, the green light fades, her father calms down.

The next second her mother collapses.

For a split-second Hane thinks that she's an orphan now, but then she sees her father stir. He opens his eye. He looks at Hane's mother, whose head rests on his chest. Very carefully he picks her up and she, too, is not as dead as she seemed.

"Are you alright?", Hane's father asks – his voice still sounds rusty, but no longer weak. Her mother makes a faint noise. She crawls into a sitting position, blocking Hane's view of her father, and leans her head against his shoulder.

"Don't make me do this again", she whispers. Her voice sounds almost like that of a child.

"Ever."

In reply he wraps his arms around her, and in turn places his head on her shoulder and then he notices Hane, who's still frozen in front of the shoe cabinet.

The moment her father's eye meets hers, Hane's senses return. She suddenly realises how childish she reacted. She should have been brave – once she's a real shinobi, shock will be unaffordable; she realises that she should have helped her mother in some way, any way, possible.

She also realises that her pyjamas are wet, and the shame that comes with this realisation immediately drowns out everything else. She crosses her arms in front of her body, hoping her father won't see, and tries to step back, but there's the shoe cabinet blocking her way.

"I'm fine", she tells herself. Her father's getting up, to come over to her.

"I'm fine!", she tells him – because she doesn't want him to think of her as a child. (It's no wonder he wouldn't let her take the final exam, if he still thinks of her as a child!)

"I'm fine!", she repeats, a little louder.

Her father kneels down in front of her. His hands grab hold of her shoulders, his eye – his own eye, not the other, scary, one – examines her carefully.

Hane tries to read his expression. She tries to find the disappointment she expects to see, but it's not there. She tries to find anything else, but she can't.

"I'm fine", she tells him again, just in case, and because she needs him to believe her.

To her confusion, he smiles. His left hand reaches up to ruffle her hair, while his right hand pulls her closer to him. It is then, from up close, that Hane sees it, something that shocks her almost as much as seeing her father almost-die. There are tears running down his cheek, leaving a trail in the dirt that clings to his skin. (She has never in her live seen her father cry. Real shinobi don't.)

"It's perfectly fine, if you're not", he whispers in her ear and pulls her even closer, so close that Hane can no longer keep her arms between him and her wet pyjamas.

Her father doesn't seem to mind, though. He just holds her, very close, and finally Hane relaxes. She buries her face in his torn flak-jacket (she doesn't mind the stench, because somewhere underneath it it smells of dad, and it smells of home and security), and begins to cry.


	4. Back To Normal

_Hey there!  
>Before this chapter I'd like to point out that I really have no idea what I'm writing about... that is to say – I never witnessed my father almost-dying in our hallway, nor did I ever see my mother go all goddess-of-life on him. I also don't have any knowledge of psychology that goes beyond wikipedia-researches.<br>So... everything regarding the coping (and other things) is pretty much guess-work, and if anyone of you has any kind of thoughts regarding it, I'd be more than glad to hear them.  
>Speaking of which – thank you so much for your reviews so far!<em>

_~ Nero._

* * *

><p><strong>Back to Normal<strong>

That night Hane dreams – her father is dying and her mother turns into an evil witch – but she won't remember anything about it. In fact she won't remember much about that night at all.

She'll have vague memories that, shortly after her seventh birthday, she had a fever. The fever lasts two days. When Hane wakes up on the third, she knows that she's healthy again. She also knows that everything is fine. The sun is flooding her room with late summer light and as she inhales she picks up her father's scent lingering in her room.

She hurries to get dressed, splashes her face with water and brushes her teeth but not her hair. (She rarely does unless her mother is watching. She doesn't see the point – no matter how many times she forces the comb through it, it'll look all messed up again in no time – and there's nothing she can do about it.)

Then she storms downstairs and into the kitchen. She finds her parents seated around the breakfast table, which strikes her as a bit odd (it is almost noon), but now is not the time to worry about that either.

"You're back!", she exclaims and runs towards her father. The next second she's up in the air – so suddenly it almost takes her breath away. This is standard-procedure. The way her father wraps his arms around her, however, the way he buries his nose in her hair and holds her very tight as he returns to his seat, the way he still doesn't seem willing to let her go, now that she's placed on his lap – this is not standard-procedure.

"Dad?", Hane whispers after what feels like hours. She doesn't have to say any more. Her father loosens his embrace. He places one kiss somewhere on her tangled mess of hair.

"I missed you", he says, but Hane's attention is already somewhere else. She's staring at the number of plates and bowls occupying the breakfast table, and at her mother, who's too busy shovelling rice into her mouth to take notice of her daughter at all.

"Did she eat all that?", Hane mouths at her father. He nods.

"She's going to be sick", Hane muses. This time her father shakes his head (though he doesn't look too certain).

"I'll be fine", her mother assures them both. She pushes back the now emptied bowl, and closes her eyes. (She doesn't look fine, Hane thinks.)

"But", she adds "I think I'd like to go back to bed now."

Hane's father gets up so quickly, that – if it wasn't for her reflexes – Hane probably would have tumbled off his lap. As it is, she lands smoothly on the tile floor. She watches as her father helps her mother to her feet.

"I'll be right back", he tells her and Hane nods. She watches her parents disappear upstairs and wonders what's wrong with her mother. Nothing serious, she hopes. But then, she thinks, her parents probably would tell her if it was.

Hane fights the urge to follow upstairs. She patiently waits for her father to return, biting her nails. Her stomach rumbles, because even worrying about her parents can't drown out the delicious scents that fill the kitchen, or how hungry she is.

"Is mum sick?", she asks when her father comes back. She watches him sort the emptied plates from the kitchen-table into the dishwasher.

"She's just exhausted", he tells her.

"Why?", Hane asks.

"Hmm", her father fixes her with his eye. She doesn't like the look on his face, half worried, half something-else she can't read.

"...because that was some powerful jutsu she used."

For a second the image of her mother turning into a witch fills Hane's mind. But that was a dream she thinks and shakes her head. She wants to ask her father what jutsu he's talking about, but she can't bring herself to mouth the question.

"I'm hungry", she says instead and takes her seat at the table.

* * *

><p>While Hane is having breakfast her father busies himself with cleaning the kitchen. Hane watches him.<p>

"Dad?", she says after a while. It's now or never – she thinks – she already lost too much time, with him not coming home and her being sick and all that. She tries to recall Nozomi's advice. Be firm, be straight forward, don't ask him – just tell him what you want.

Oddly enough, it helps that her father is too busy examining the insides of their fridge to pay her much attention.

"I want to take the final exam this year", Hane says in what she hopes is a firm, and straight forward and grown up voice.

There's no answer. Maybe he didn't hear her, Hane wonders, and gets affirmed in her suspicion when he finally turns around and states that he probably should swing by the grocery-store today, and if Hane wants to accompany him.

"Sure", Hane answers before she can stop herself and then – when her father is finally looking at her – she repeats what she said before, sounding less firm and less straight forward and very child like in her own ears this time.

"Hmm...", her father says. He presses his tongue against his upper lip.

"We'll talk about this later", he then tells her and proceeds to clean up the remains of her breakfast.

"But...", Hane protests. She can feel a tingly sensation behind her eyes and around her nose and she has to concentrate very hard to will herself not to cry.

"There's only two weeks left to apply", she tells her father – then remembers that she spent almost half a week in bed.

"One", she corrects herself "One and a half week left to apply."

How can her father not be aware of that? After all, the dates are the same every year.

"And Iruka-sensei said I was ready to take the exam last year!", she adds

"He said you had the skills", her father replies.

Hane shrugs. She doesn't see the difference, just like she didn't the year before. She already knows what her father is going to say next.

"You're still very young", he says, just like Hane knew he would. It hurts, despite the knowing, and even though she's still fighting hard against them, Hane can feel tears welling up behind her eyes.

"I didn't ask to be!", she spits, slips down her chair and heads for the door.

She bumps straight into her father's arms. She tries to struggle, but she finds herself locked in his grasp and unable to move. He carries her into the living-room, where he takes his seat on the sofa, with Hane (still secured ins his arms) on his lap.

"I'm sorry", he says. Hane doesn't say anything. She remembers her mother's words that arguing with her father was a waste of time, and wonders if it would impress her father enough to let her take the exam, if she managed to escape now. (Only she doesn't know how – as she would have to get her father to let go of her first, so that she can move, but she can't do so unless she's able to move and it's kind of confusing just thinking about it.)

"Once you're a genin there's no turning back", her father tells her. Hane doesn't understand. Why would she want to turn back, once she's become a genin?

"You won't be able to play with your friends-"

I won't be anyway. Hane thinks. This year Nozomi _will_take the final exam. So this is her only chance to end up in the same team as her best friend. It is her only chance to end up with Shikamaru as her jounin-instructor...

Of course she doesn't say this – these are personal reasons and shouldn't be taken into account when it comes to important decisions like this is.. She listens silently as her father goes on about how she might miss out on a lot of things and won't even notice until it is far too late.

"But I hate being a child!", she finally gets to toss in.

"I hate going to the academy!", she says. It's much, much harder to suppress your tears when you're unable to move, she notices. She doesn't notice when her father lets go of her, his hold on her turns into an embrace. She's too busy crying and too busy hating herself for it.

When she finally calms down, she's cradled in her father's arms. She feels silly and useless and kind of like the child her father insists she still is. Therefore she is quite surprised when her father doesn't tell her how this proofs his point, but instead gives a sigh, ruffles her hair and tells Hane that he'll talk about this with her mother.


	5. Personal Reasons

**Personal Reasons**

A week passes. Hane gets back to school. She would get back to training with Nozimi and Shikamaru – but he was sent out on some mission, so now it is only the girls spending their time together on one of the training grounds.

"Maybe your dad could train us?", Nozomi suggests one day.

Hane looks up from the piece of wood she is trying to break by focussing too much chakra in her hands. (Her mother refuses to teach her how to punch holes into walls – because she's still too young – so Hane decided to figure it out herself.)

"I don't think he has the time", she says and quickly returns to her tree-branch. The truth is, since his return her father is either looking after her mother, who is still recovering from what-ever-that-powerful-jutsu-was, or he sits in their living-room and stares out their window. It scares Hane – and sometimes she thinks that maybe her mother isn't just recovering from over-exertion and sometimes she thinks that it's her father with whom something is wrong.

She has gathered (from bits of conversation between her father and Shizune, who drops by every now and then), that it was the first time her mother activated The Seal (what seal – Hane does not know. She tried to ask her father, but instead of getting in answer she ended up telling him all about the sealing-techniques they had covered in school so far. She didn't try to ask him again), and therefore her body still has to learn how to recover efficiently. She didn't get a chance to gather why her father would rather stare into space than play with her (as he usually does, when he's home).

Hane doesn't want to think about it too much. She tries to distract herself by training for the final exam with Nozomi, but this only reminds her of another problem: There are only two days left until this year's final exam, but ever since he promised to speak with her mother, Hane's father hasn't said one more word about it

"He probably forgot about it", Nozomi suggests, when Hane tells her about this.

"Just like he did last year..."

"He did not!", Hane replies quickly. Her eyes stay focused on the piece of wood in her hand.

"Yes he did", Nozomi shruggs, "you told me he said he'd think about it, and then he went out on some mission and that was that."

Hane bites her lip. She tries to concentrate on nothing but the chakra covering her left hand. Yet, she remembers. She's fairly good at forgetting things she doesn't want to remember, and right now she hates Nozomi a little for reminding her.

On the last day to apply, last year, she had begged Iruka-sensei to let her take the exam, she had begged him to let her hand in her parents' consent later, because clearly her father had said he'd give it – he simply forgot that she needed it in written form. Her classmates wouldn't stop making fun of her for weeks.

Hane shakes her head. The branch in her hand is still unharmed. If she was the heroine of some kind of story, she thinks, there'd be nothing but wood dust and possibly a hole in the ground now. But there isn't. She isn't. Frustrated Hane tosses the branch back to the trees where it came from.

"The thing is", Nozomi says very quietly.

"I can't fail the exam again."

She kneels down next to Hane and looks her in the eyes. (Nozomi has warm, brown eyes – so very much unlike her mother.)

"I'm sorry...", she says. She looks like she means it.

"I really want us to be on the same team", Nozomi explains, "but – what if your parents won't let you make genin until you're... ten? I'll be fifteen by then."

"Hn", Hane nods.

"Besides, I think they know that I failed on purpose last year...", Nozomi adds.

Hane shrugs. It doesn't make much of difference anyway, does it? She gets up to retrieve her tree-branch and also to swallow her tears without Nozomi noticing.

"Maybe if Shikamaru-sensei talked to your father?", Nozomi calls after her.

"Sure", Hane mumbles to herself, "but he isn't here – is he?"

* * *

><p>The following day there's no school, because of some commemoration for a couple of shinobi who died during their mission. It's the first commemoration Hane gets to attend – usually you only get the day off, if you were acquainted with one of the deceased in some way and no one Hane knows has died so far, but this time it is different. Maybe because it were more than one who died, or because it weren't only shinobi of the leaf, but also those of the allied sand and cloud who had lost their life. Maybe it is because it was one of the first three-way collaborations between the villages. (And it obviously failed, even though the Hokage emphasizes that this mission's failure doesn't mean anything with regard to further collaborations.)<p>

Hane doesn't care very much. Commemorations are unspeakably boring, she decides. She's standing next to her mother, who is standing next her father, her arm linked with his – which seems unseemly to Hane, given the situation, but also a little odd in general. (Normally her parents avoid any form of physical contact in public. Even in front of Hane they rarely so much as hug.) She suspects her mother just isn't that steady on her feet yet.

None of the names mentioned sound familiar to her, and Hane soon stops listening to the Hokage's sermon about life and death and misfortune and loving memory.

She watches the leaves sway on the trees. They still look as green as ever, even though it is only a matter of days until autumn will come and cover the village in fallen leaves. Hane sometimes wonders if that's where the village got its name. During the first days of autumn, when the falling leaves still take you by surprise, the streets all but vanish beneath them. Yet she has never seen them lose their colour. One day they look all green and alive, and the next they are golden and cover the ground.

Her thoughts return from trees and leaves to the present as silence falls around her and Hane quickly adepts a pose more fitting for a silent prayer. (She wonders how many of those around her are really thinking of the deceased. Maybe they are really going through their grocery-list?)

Once the ceremony is over everyone starts to head home. Hane wonders if she can meet with Nozomi now to play - that is to train – but there is something in the air that tells her, today is not the day for either playing or training.

"Aren't we going home?", she asks instead.

"Of course", her mother answers.

"Right", her father sighs. He lets go of her mother (who gives him an odd look, but other than that seems perfectly fine standing on her own two feet).

"You go ahead", he says with a light smile.

"Aren't you coming with us?", Hane blurts out, but one look from her mother is enough to silence her.

"Are you-", she then asks herself, but Hane's father cuts her off with a nod.

"Later", he says an vanishes in a swirl of leaves.

It is much later when her father comes home. Her mother just went out to get some take-away for dinner, as she doesn't expect him to be in the mood to cook. (It is a well kept family-secret that Hane's father is a brilliant cook. He claims that he picked up his skills during some undercover mission in a kitchen, but Hane suspects that in truth he just enjoys cooking very much. Her mother says, it is because he hates dining out.)

Hane sits in her room, cross legged her left hand flat against her toy chest (she doesn't need it any longer, anyway), when there's a knock at her door. She waits, then invites her father to come in. (She knows it is him, for unlike her mother, her father usually waits for an answer.)

"What are you doing?", he asks. He squats down on the floor next to Hane and watches as she sticks out her tongue in concentration.

"Mum won't teach me how to punch holes into walls", Hane explains.

"So, I thought – when you walk up a tree, and you use too much chakra, you get tossed back, right? And there's a dent in the tree. So, if you were to do the same on purpose, but with your hand instead of your foot, you should be able to cause some damage."

Her father tilts his head. He looks from his daughter, to the entirely unharmed toy chest in front of her, but he doesn't say anything. Hane gets the feeling that her idea was very naïve and very silly and no good at all.

"Hmm...", he takes her hand in his and turns it over so that her palm faces in his direction.

"Where do you focus the chakra?", he asks then.

Hane knits her brows.

"I told you", she tells him, "In my hand."

"Mmhm", he makes. He lets his thumb draw littles circle in her palm and Hane almost dares to hope for him to give her some kind of instruction, but instead he changes the subject.

"I saw Kurenai-san", he says.

"She told me, she's afraid that Nozomi will fail the final exam again, if we don't let you participate as well."

Hane blinks. Then she shakes her head.

"She won't. She told me", she's almost about to cry again, but she manages enough self-control not to.

"And you wanting to take the exam has nothing to do with this?", he father asks.

Hane bites her lip.

"No", she lies.

"My personal feelings have nothing to do with what I think best", she tells him. She sounds very grown up, she thinks to herself and looks at her father expectantly.

But her father doesn't look very impressed. If anything he looks shocked. He doesn't get a chance to say anything, though, because at that moment her mother calls them to dinner.

* * *

><p><em>If you enjoyed this chapter, I'd more than appreciate it if you left a review.<br>If you didn't, I'd love to hear your critique!_


	6. First Blood

_Before this chapter begins here's a warning:  
>There will be blood and gore-ish things in this chapter.<em>

_That's it. I hope you'll enjoy reading it, and please, please, please don't forget to leave a review if you did! (or if you didn't.) ^^_

* * *

><p><strong>First Blood<strong>

Hane never hated her parents. She'd be angry at her mother or upset with her father; she had seen other children yell at their parents "I hate you!", but had always assumed they were merely overreacting.

Now – for the first time in her life – Hane feels inclined to do the same. Although, she isn't a very loud girl, so instead of throwing a tantrum she keeps quiet, bites her teeth and wishes them to die. ...or maybe not die. But to go through the same hell as she goes.

One week ago Nozomi received her forehead-protector and left Hane behind at the Academy. Not because Hane wasn't good enough to qualify as genin, but because her parents (after one long and very loud argument) had decided that she still was too young to become a real shinobi.

She can't even say what is worse. The fact that her teachers ignor her (because they know that she already knows), or that she has no one left to talk to. She is used to her teachers' lack of attention – but until recently she had had Nozomi, who would give her all the attention she needed; who would make sure that there was no reason to be bored.

Now Hane feels bored most of the time, but most of all she feels lonely. And betrayed. Her teachers tell her to slow down, to go easier on her classmates during training sessions, to explain to them what she has already understood. Yet her parents keep telling her that she is still very young and that she should make the best of the time she has free from missions.

One day her teacher asks her to help a boy from her class (Teizou) with his clone-jutsu. She doesn't want to (he's an idiot, and he probably won't let her help him anyway), but when she tries to argue her teacher tells her to better do as he says – she's in enough trouble as it is with all the classes she skipped or homework she neglected.

Grudgingly she walks over to where Teizou and his friends are hanging out on the playground. She's a little scared, but she'd never admit it. They are almost twice her age, and more than twice her seize and they look at her as if she was a trespasser in their territory (which she is, because this  
>is "their territory" on the playground).<p>

She stops a few feet away from them and patiently waits until one of them decides to talk to her, but after they have exchanged a few whispered words they decide to ignore her. After a while Hane gathers all her courage and calls out Teizou's name. The boys laugh.

"She fancies you!", one of Teizou's friends suggest. Hane tries to ignore him. She waits, calls his name again, until finally he walks towards her, his friends trailing behind him.

He stops right in front of her, and Hane has to tilt back her head so she can still see his face.

"What do you want, midget?", he asks and his two friends laugh.

"Iruka-sensei asked me to", Hane begins, but gets cut off by hooting noises from Teizou's friends.

"He told me to help", she tries her best to ignore them, to focus on Teizou who keeps silent, while he looks down at her with an amused grin on his lips.

"He told me to help you practice your clone-jutsu", she finishes the sentence.

Teizou raises one hand, silencing his two friends.

"And why would I want to take lessons from a little kid?", he asks then.

Hane blinks. For a split-second she thinks she might start to cry and hates herself for it, but then she thinks that she'd rather hate Teizou than herself.

"Because even a little kid isn't half as useless as you are", she tells him.

As she has said the words Teizou grabs her by her collar, and lifts her up in the air.

"Say that again!", he dares her.

Hane kicks around, until one of his friends takes hold of her legs.

"Go on", Teizou tells her.

"If I'm so useless, why don't you fight back? Eh?"

Hane doesn't say anything. Teizou holds her close enough to his body for her left hand to touch his chest (she only has to raise her arm a little). She can feel the amassed chakra in her palm, but it's still well contained. (If he wasn't so very useless he'd notice, but he is and therefore he doesn't.)

"Let me go", she tells him calmer than she would have thought she'd be able to.

Teizou laughs. His friends laugh. From the corner of her eye Hane can see other children gather around them. They, too, laugh, cheer, she thinks she can hear someone say "Serves her right".

"Let me go", she repeats.

"Or what? You'll spit in my face?", Teizou grins.

Hane looks at him, blank-faced. She opens her mouth, even though she doesn't know what to say, and yet she can hear her own voice:

"I'll kill you", it tells him.

Teizou's friends laugh. Hane catches her own reflection in his eyes. A seven year old girl, small – even for her age – with big grey eyes, and thick, pink pigtails. With the word "Baby" written on her too-wide forehead.

"Please", he tells her "Try!"

Before she can reconsider, Hane stretches out her left hand – please, please, please make it _work _this time! – his shirt's fabric brushes against her skin. And then, in one instance, she releases all of the chakra she had gathered in her hand.

The recoil frees her from Teizou's grasp, too fast, too powerful for her to react. Before she has even figured out which way she has to spin to land on her feet, she crashes into a wall and shortly after that to the ground.

She waits for Teizou and his friends to gather around her, to make fun of her, to tell her how she got what she deserved for her arrogance. But no one comes. An eerie silence fills the playground, or maybe she just hit her head so hard that she no longer can hear?

She can taste blood in her mouth. Her left arm hurts so much she wants to cry (but she doesn't) and with each breath, each movement the pain digs deeper into her shoulder, travels down her side.

How she manages to get back to her feet, Hane does not know, but somehow she does. The pain in her arm makes her dizzy; everything seems far away, like a dream.

As Hane nears the other children they back away, she can hear them whisper, but their voices sound as blurred and distorted as their faces look.

And then she sees Teizou. (Or what is left of him.) Flat on the ground. On his back. All around him the sand is coloured a red so dark it almost appears black.

Hane stars at the gaping hole in his chest, takes in the stench of stomach acid and his half digested lunch.

I did this – she thinks – and she knows that she should feel bad, and maybe she does. She also feels proud (she knows she shouldn't, but she does). Because her jutsu (the jutsu she came up with, all on her own) worked. Not quite in the way she had planned. But it worked.

Suddenly the voices around her grow louder and as Hane looks up she can see two grown-ups coming towards them. She recognises her mother's hair. (The rest is too blurred to recognise anything.)

Her mother has seen her, too, Hane knows, for suddenly she stops. She stares at Teizou's body, and then at Hane. One hand covers her mouth and she shakes her head in disbelieve.

When Hane's legs give way it isn't her mother, who catches her. It's the second grown-up. Fingertips brush against Hane's left shoulder (Hane can hear herself cry out). She knows Shizune-sans voice, as she tells her not to move, and that they'll get her to the hospital.

Hane waits for her mother to come, to take care of her, but she doesn't.

She's still nothing but a pink dot at the far end of the playground when Hane blacks out.


	7. Estrangement and Evasion

_Hello dear readers!  
>I'm drifting further and further away from fanfic-writing, but I'm happy to announce: I finally managed to finish this chapter!<br>I hope you'll enjoy reading it (even if the things that happen might not be all that enjoyable - however, this time there will be no blood), and whether you do or you don't (enjoy it, not read it) I'd be happy to hear your thoughts/critiques/etc. (Of course, if you feel like writing a review for the chapter without reading it, I won't stop you, but I don't really see the point in doing so.)  
>Best wishes,<em>**  
><strong>

_~Nero.  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>Estrangement and Evasion<br>**

Hane feels light, surrounded by dark clouds of nothing. She cannot see. But she can hear voices. Distant voices having hushed conversations. Some words reach her.

_Killed_, and _coldblooded_, and _notevensasuke_, they say. _Accident_, they say and _thesethingshappen _and then, for a while the words get fewer, quieter, before they grow louder again and seep into Hane's hiding-place.

_Consequences_, she hears over and over again and _responsibility._

Then the voices fade away. When they return only one of them is left. It's no longer whispering.

"No-", it says "This is your fault!"

It sounds familiar.

"If you would have let her take that blasted exam this would never have happened!"

Hane recognises her mother. She strains her ears, and now she can make out her father's voice as well, but he talks very quietly and Hane does not understand what he is saying.

"-yes! Eventually!", her mother cuts him off.

"But only those who deserve it!"

"-or whose enemies are willing to pay."

Hane can hear her mother huff, and then her parents are silent for a long time. At last her mother talks again.

"How – what kind of – what kind of-", she says.

"Sakura", her father's voice cuts through the air, razor-sharp.

"You should go home", he tells her mother.

There's more words, but Hane lets herself drift away, as the voices grow louder. She doesn't want to hear them any more.

* * *

><p>It smells familiar. Of disinfectants, of white fabric, of the detergent they use for the nurses' uniforms. Her mother used to take her along to work almost every day, until she was finally old enough to enrol in the Academy – to Hane the hospital feels almost as much like home as the Hokage's office does.<p>

Something woke her, something – Hane tries to remember. And then it comes again. One blinding wave of pain washes up her left arm, through her shoulder and down her spine.

She opens her eyes, screaming, struggling to sit up. Two hands hold her down. Warm brown eyes.

"I'm sorry dear, I didn't mean to-", Shizune smiles – a soft and apologetic smile.

Hane tries to look past her, but she can't see anyone. Once more she tries to get up, but Shizune's hand are still resting on her shoulder and chest.

"Where's mum?", she finally manages to say. Her mouth feels dry.

"She's...", Shizune hesitates.

"She's needed elsewhere right now", she says and: "I'm sorry."

Hane blinks a number of times. Her mother had always been the one to patch her up, no matter what. She can't be needed elsewhere when Hane needs her. She can't be.

"But she'll be here?", she whispers. Her eyes are getting moist, and she tries to lift her left arm, but there's the pain again, and before she knows it Hane is crying, and Shizune is trying to comfort her as best as she can.

Later Hane will feel embarrassed for the way she clings to Shizune, for the way she calls for her mother, when she hears the door open – but right now she's far too upset and confused to care. Right now she doesn't even think to wipe away her tears when she realises that it is not her mother, but her father who came to visit.

"I'll leave you two alone", Shizune breaks the silence, peals away from Hane, whose right hand is still clutching her kimono's fabric. She halts, when she passes Hane's father, and the two grown ups exchange a few whispered words, and then Shizune is gone.

Hane's father sits down on the chair next to her bed. He takes her hand – her right hand, which isn't covered in bandages – toys with her fingers. Hane would ask him to take off his mask, but she knows that this isn't the place, and so she tries to read from his eye as much as she can.

"I didn't know...", she mumbles after a long while of silence.

"I didn't know it would work like this..."

He doesn't say anything. He just holds her hand. Hane doesn't know what else to tell him. She cannot pretend that she didn't mean to kill Teizou. Not in front of her father. Because she did. She just had not known that she could.

There's more silence. Eventually Hane drifts back to sleep. (In her dream she is searching for her mother. She finds her at the graveyard, kneeling in front of a tombstone. Her mother is crying, and now Hane can see: _Hatake Hane _is written there, engraved in stone. She tugs at her mothers dress. "Mum", she says, "I'm here. I'm alive. You don't have to cry", but her mother doesn't recognise her. She looks at Hane as if she was a stranger, an alien, a monster -)

When she wakes up, her father is still there, still holding her hand. It's dark outside.

Her father's eye is shut – maybe he fell asleep, waiting for her to wake up again, but as soon as Hane stirs, only a little, his eye opens.

"Hey", he whispers. His left hand brushes through her hair (his right is still holding hers).

"Dad?", Hane says, "I want to go home."

"Hmmm...", he thinks for while.

"I'm afraid you'll have to stay here for while", he then tells her.

"And then?", Hane asks.

Her father doesn't answer.

* * *

><p>Hane stays in hospital for only two weeks. Her father visits her almost every day. They never talk about what she did, or what will happen once she's ready to leave hospital.<p>

Sometimes Shizune comes by, to look at Hane's arm, and her leg, and her head, and once the Hokage herself shows up. Her mother, however, does not.

On the third day in hospital (or the third day in hospital that Hane is aware of), she has to be moved to a different room. Her first room looked out to the village, and on the third day someone smashes her window. The kunai hits the door-frame.

When this happens Hane is on her own. She panics, because there's a tag attached to the knife. She doesn't dare to call for help though – because she thinks that maybe the explosive will only set of, when someone enters the room. And so she sits in her bed, staring at the supposed threat, unable to move, because her right leg, and her left arm are still in bandages and even sitting up isn't easy.

She screams when her father opens the door. But the tag has no function. It reads MURDERER. (Hane's father doesn't tell her, but she's able to read the word, before he has pocketed the weapon.)

She's moved to a different room after this and her father insists to stay with her most of the time.

During the second week Nozomi comes to visit. They don't talk about what happened (or what will happen) either. In a weird and hectic voice Nozomi tells Hane about her missions, most of which were exceptionally boring – excepting that one time she and her team accompanied Shikamaru to Sunagakure, which – technically – wasn't so much a mission as it was a field trip.

"But we ran into a band of thieves on our way there", Nozomi says. She sounds a little proud.

"Did you fight them?", Hane asks.

Nozomi shakes her head.

"Shikamaru-sensei took care of them", she admits. And then, after she has told all the stories she had to tell, she leaves, almost forgets to say good bye before she hurries out the room.

Then comes the night, when someone (they'll never find out who it was) puts poison in Hane's food.

"It smells different", she notices, but doesn't think much of it. She would have eaten it, too, if her father hadn't taken the bowl from her immediately.

Hane has never seen him this angry, and she almost fears for the hospital-staff when he leaves her room to talk to them.

That same night she is brought home. Back to her room.

Mister Beagle is waiting for her. Her mother isn't.

Until now Hane has not dared to ask her father. She knew that she wouldn't get an answer.

But now it is different. She is home. Her father isn't wearing his mask, and he isn't sitting on a chair, but lying in her bed next to her – and her mother isn't here.

"Did mum run away?", Hane asks, very quietly.

There's the hint of a smile on her father's lips (but not in his eye), as he shakes his head.

"She left on a mission", he tells her. His fingers catch hold of Mister Beagles snout.

"You know, maybe we should get you a real dog soon..."

"Why now?"

"You might need someone to protect you-"

"Why did she leave now?", Hane takes the plush-dog from her father (he lets her) and tosses it to the far end of the room.

"Because she had to", her father replies. Hane knows, from the evenness of his voice, that this is all the answer she is going to get.

"But-", she stammers. Her mother never went out on missions – never. Why would she now? Hane tries to blink back the tears, but somehow she knows, feels, that its alright for her to cry at this moment.

She crawls into her fathers arms as good as her injuries let her.

"She'll be back soon", he whispers in her ear, "I promise", but Hane isn't sure, if she can believe him.

"Sometimes", she remembers her mother's words "your father makes promises, even though he doesn't know if he can keep them."


	8. Utilities

_Hey there! Believe it or not, I'm still alive and still (occasionally) remembering (some of) my unfinnished fanfiction. :D_  
><em>This chapter has existed in my head for over a month, but it just wouldn't transform into words... now it did. Hopefully the next one won't take that long.<em>  
><em>Also, from the next chapter on there probably will be more Hane-action and less overheared-grown-ups-talk.<em>

_****_

* * *

><p><strong>Utilities<strong>

Being alone with her father feels odd. Not so much because of what happened, but because Hane cannot remember if she has ever been on her own with him for longer than half a day, ever in her life. It just wouldn't happen.

Sometimes she thinks he hates her. After all, it's her fault that her mother left. He never says so. Nor does he mention what happened in any way. But sometimes he looks at her, and even though it's well hidden – Hane thinks she can see anger in his eye.

Sometimes she thinks that even if he does, he'll never hate her quite as much as the rest of the village.

One day Hane discovers a dead pup on the steps. A stray, most likely. At first she takes it for one of her father's dogs. She looks at it and – for the second time in her life – marvels at the amount of blood that comes from such a small body.

_That's what they want for me_. It occurs to her, but it doesn't scare her. Because they wouldn't get to her. Then she thinks of the dog, who had nothing to do with any of this. It is her fault that it had to die, she thinks. But she wasn't the one who killed it.

She wonders if she could kill the ones who did.

Every morning Shizune stops by to check on Hane. Her head and leg have already fully healed. Due to the damage's nature – Shizune had explained to Hane – they can't use medical jutsu for her arm the same way they did for her other injuries.

This morning Shizune stays to talk with her father, after she's done looking at Hane.

One of Hane's best kept secrets is this: When you squat next to the shower in the bathroom upstairs, you can hear what is being said downstairs in the kitchen. She doesn't know if her parents know this. She suspects they don't.

"I know", she hears Shizune say, "But what if Sakura doesn't find him? What if he says no? It's not like you guys parted on very good terms."

There's a pause.

"I'm on your side. Really... I'm just saying -"

"-the village can't afford not to utilize such potential", her father's voice sounds flat. Like he couldn't care less. And yet Shizune apologises twice, before she says her good-bye.

That night, when he puts her to bed, Hane thinks that maybe he doesn't hate her at all. He makes sure that all the traps and seals are working – it's for her own protection, Hane knows, but it still makes her feel like a prisoner – and there's this look in his eye again. But it's gone, once he's done with his work and sits down on her bed.

"Mind if I stay?", he asks.

The question takes Hane by surprise. But she doesn't mind. Curling up in her fathers arms, she almost feels like before – when him being at home was the exception, not the rule. When the mere idea of either her parents hating her had seemed unimaginable.

"Dad?", she turns around to look at him. His right eye is half-closed, the left hidden behind the eye-patch she gave him for his birthday two years ago. (It was the only sewing-project for kunoichi-class Hane ever finished, and she knows that it's probably not very well made, which is why he only wears it at home, when no-one will see him. Maybe, at first, Hane had felt a little upset about it. But by now she can't imagine the eye-patch going along with his mask anyway.)

"Hmm?", he nuzzles her hair.

"What does _utilize _mean?"

Suddenly his eye opens again. He looks at her, carefully.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Nowhere", Hane lies. Too quickly.

"I mean... I", she stammers. But she's spared any explanation or confessions. There's a noise downstairs. Hane hears it, and so does her father.

Before he can stop her, she's jumped out of her bed and runs down the hallway. On the stairs she stops. She remembers her mothers look, when she last saw her on the playground. What if she still looks at her that way?

By now her father has caught up with her. He steps past Hane, and wraps his arms around her mother.

"It's good to have you back", he tells her. Hane can see her mother's eyes, even now when they are hidden behind her father's shoulder.

"Yes", her mother says. She peals away from the embrace and nears Hane.

"How are you?", she asks. There's still one step between them.

"I'm fine", Hane answers mechanically. She wants to crawl into her mother's arms. But she can't. There's an invisible wall between them. She peers at her father, who watches the scene with his hands buried in his pockets and his shoulders hunched. He doesn't want to help her – Hane thinks. Or maybe, he doesn't know how to.

"Hane – why don't you go back to bed?", he suggests at last.

"But..."

Her mother nods.

And then she stretches one hand out, piercing through the invisible wall between them. She ruffles Hane's hair

"Our bed. Okay?", she whispers. Three words, possibly no more fingers that touch Hane, but they are enough to make everything okay for the moment. Hane nods and hurries upstairs.

She's getting her blanket as well as Mr Beagle from her room, when her curiosity gets the better of her. Blanket and dog get tossed on her parents bed and she tiptoes across the hall to the bathroom.

"-he's with Tsunade right now", her mother says.

"And he'll really do it?"

"He said he would."

"You really think it's a good idea?"

"Yes. Yes, I do. I really think it's the best option there is."

"But...", her father's voice grows very quiet. Hane knows this isn't a good sign.

"Unless you have any better ideas!", her mother's voice– in contrast to her father's – is growing louder.

"There's something wrong with our daughter – and I'm not planning to just hope that she'll sort it out her own. If there's anything I can do to help, then I'll try and help her. And if that means sending her away, then I'll send her away!"

They are going to send her away. Of course they are. If she were a real shinobi, she'd get executed for killing a comrade. And yet. Hearing it feels like falling. And no one's going to catch her.

"Then, what _would _you do?", her mother's agitated voice cuts through Hane's thoughts.

"Tie her to a tree and hope that no-one's gonna kidnap her?!"

Silence. Then – something being knocked over. A chair, maybe.

"I'm sorry -"

The kitchen-door -

"- Kakashi! I'm -"

- the front door slamming shut.

Hane isn't sure what just happened. But she suddenly knows, that her mother can't find her spying.

As quickly and quietly as she can, she hurries to her parents bedroom and hides between the sheets.

It's not long until her mother comes in.

"Hane-chan?", she sounds as if she's been crying. Her face is wet as she pulls Hane towards her.

"I'm so sorry...", she whispers, again and again and Hane doesn't understand what she's talking about it.

"Am I going to be exiled?", she finally asks.

Her mother lets go of her a little. She dabs at her eyes. And shakes her head.

"You're going to train with one of the greatest shinobi alive."


End file.
